


And No One Likes It

by Midori_Cheloniidae



Category: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!
Genre: Adventure, Agender Character, Explicit Language, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Hiking, Kissing, Naiads, Not Christmas, Obey Me Secret Santa, Recipes, Slice of Life, Snek boy, Tails
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28329744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midori_Cheloniidae/pseuds/Midori_Cheloniidae
Summary: MC convinces the brothers to go trail running on a hot day in the Devildom.You'd think this would just be worthy of a drabble, but somehow made it to 8K+.For @larry-the-demon as part of the Obey Me Secret Santa gift exchange.Not sure I fulfilled the brief, but I tried, dude.
Relationships: Belphegor & Main Character (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Belphegor (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!) & Reader, Belphegor (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Reader, Levi | Leviathan/Reader, Leviathan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!) & Reader, Leviathan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Reader, Leviathan/Main Character (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Main Character/Satan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Satan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!) & Reader, Satan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	And No One Likes It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LarryTheDemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LarryTheDemon/gifts).



##  AND NO ONE LIKES IT

### I.

On a summer’s day, in the not so distant past, eight hikers were picking their way along a rock strewn path in the far reaches of the Devildom. The sky was of a deep coal dust penetrated with shades of indigo, beneath which a canyon lay stretched out in long shadows and the flat illumination of a bright, full moon. A thicket of thin, ghostly trees demarcated the canyon entrance and in the dense shadowy pools formed by their tangled branches, the hikers were swallowed up until only their voices remained. 

“This appears to be the start of the trailhead.” said one. “It’s as good a place to start as any.” 

“Alright alright alright,” said another. “I’m rarin’ to go!” The sound of gravel shifting underfoot emphasized his point.

“So this is a horseshoe-shaped trail with a beginning and an end connected by a short distance on the road. There are other trails that branch off of it, so be sure to stay on the path with the yellow blazes,” said yet a third voice. “On this map it seems to be the main trail and the widest, so it shouldn’t be difficult to follow if you pay attention.” A long finger traced the route on the map, while a thumb sporting an attached compass was angled to align magnetic north with the map’s latitude lines. 

“First one to return to this spot will get a prize. From me. Winner can name it.” said the first voice, spurring a half-dozen pairs of moonlit eyes to slide in its direction. “But if I win, I get to ask whomever I please for a prize.” 

How fortunate to encounter old friends again! For it is the Seven Lords of Devildom themselves and MC. Yet why do we find them preparing to engage in an activity so foreign, and on such a day as this? So hot it is certain to cause Asmo to first sweat then breakout in acne. So dry that Satan will itch himself irritated until he’s likely to squabble at the slightest provocation. On a road so rocky it will assuredly trip up Levi within a few paces. And what are they doing so far from the House of Lamentation?

It so happened that in the course of MC’s labors to find cheap, healthy, and all-ages safe activities to engage in with the brothers, MC discovered that the Devildom had recreational trails. Although completely out of character for a realm of eternal damnation, it was still deeply appealing to MC’s misbegotten sentimentality for hazily remembered childhood outdoorsmanship. MC had excitedly spread a map over the dining table supplanting the rightful place of breakfast platters. “See here,” as they had explained to any brother willing to take a disinterested glance up from their cereal. “if we leave from the underground shortcut, then we should be to the trailhead by mid-morning.” 

“Are you sure those trails are for hiking,” Belphie queried, sparing not a glance to the map. “and not for disposing of dead bodies?” As a crestfallen pallor fell over MC, the sound of a sigh and chair legs scraping signaled Satan’s reluctant entrance into the effort to identify a route to the trailhead. But, though Satan loved maps (no one loved them more) and though he had a keen interest in navigating by the cartographic landmarks of a well-crafted orienteering map, he secretly doubted that the brothers would ever go for MC’s exploratory plans. Yet MC was all optimism.

In the following weeks, MC began their campaign for hiking in earnest, littering their DDDs with exquisitely crafted photographs of fertile landscapes and elegantly poised moonrises, and links to ecstatic trail reviews breathlessly promising to reveal secret waterfalls and far flung vistas, causing Belphie at one point to beg them to stop spamming outdoor porn. Fearing a dampening effect on the overall sharing of any porn, Asmo helpfully released a flurry of best porn DDD practices by way of pictorial survey. At that moment, scrolling through Asmo’s increasingly explicit exposition, MC came to the realization that their sanity hinged on blocking Asmo henceforth and in recognizing that no headway had been, nor would be, made on the hiking front until they considered the unique needs of their intended audience. Their next pitch wasn’t even recognizable as such: gone were the appeals to exercise, clean air, and communing with nature, replaced by promises of wanton drunkenness, humiliating costumes, wagered competition and trailside lunch. And, thus, MC introduced the brothers to the dubious sport of trail running.

### II.

Satan stood astride the trail in a white taffeta running tutu emblazoned with red wine glasses, his wide stance an effort to dry the perspiration already chafing his inner thighs. He gripped a hand drawn copy of MC’s map and a closed flask, most certainly filled with something more entertaining than water. Beside him, Mammon dropped onto one knee and shifted his weight forward in a stretch that nearly exceeded the tensile strength of his yellow speedos, and far exceeded the visual consent of any brother unfortunate enough to witness it. As MC looked on, they felt gratified for misleading Mammon about the ubiquity of speedos in trail running. Those speedos helped him feel like he could run faster, and it helped MC … well, it just helped. 

Beel snapped the clips closed on a dozen webbed straps dangling across his naked torso, securing himself to a backpack sized for through-hiking thousands of kilometers of terrain. The close-fitting weight already induced a steady stream of sweat down his back and across his chest, yet despite the encumbrance, he seemed to only stand all the taller with his shoulders now lashed backwards to the frame. MC had seen fit to weigh his pack beforehand, insisting that, for safety, it could be no more than 10% of his body weight (even though a Beel overburdened by food and drink benefited everyone). 

Meanwhile, Levi was already regretting his costume for it was entirely too elaborate and layered for the hot, dirty conditions that apparently made up the ‘outdoors’, and which no one had seen fit to warn him about. In rare sympathy with his brother, Asmo pouted at the inhospitable conditions. His long sighs and knit brows were aimed directly at MC who had blatantly misled him about the Devilgrammable opportunities in a place so demonforsaken. At every turn was an opportunity to get moisture or dirt, or some infernal combination of both, on his adorable pairing of lace-up boots, cargo hiking tights and a blaze orange puffer vest. How would anyone even be able to see his perfectly done nails emerging from his shirt’s cute little thumbholes when there wasn’t a streetlamp to be found anywhere? Ignored by MC, Asmo took a long draught from his own bedazzled flask. 

MC was focused instead on donning equipment that would help them even the odds when competing with demons: a drinking tube snaked from their back to their shoulder, all clothing was unfurled to its furthest extent against close encounters with nature, gaiters closed the ankle-level chink in their armor, a pair of hiking poles were firmly strapped onto their wrists, and a headlamp jutted from their forehead. MC endured all of the withering looks and asides from Belphie, safe in the knowledge that he had no credibility to criticize their function-over-form choices when he himself was wearing an animal-themed onesie. Lucifer made absolutely no changes to his outfit. After much pointed gesticulation centered on his fur-lined cape, he allowed MC to ply him with a water bottle that he conceded to hold gingerly before him by its cap like it was an explosive device. 

Seven foolishly clad demons and one human positioned themselves on the trail in anticipation of a start signal. MC flicked on their headlamp and frowned at the scrubby ground cover that was so vigorous and had so far extended itself onto the trail that it obscured the true character of the surface, being that of rocks and protruding tree roots. When put all together, most of the trail was unsafe to walk on. Which is why, of course, they were running. 

And run they did as Satan suddenly called out the start, at the moment to his maximal advantage, with predictable groups forming from the very outset. Mammon let out a great whoop and sprinted ahead with a celebratory leap at finally being unleashed, while Beel tore off just slightly behind him, displacing portions of the trail itself with each foot strike. At a safe distance from their cloud of dust and sharp sediment, Satan was shortly to follow, setting a distance runner’s pace, with, perhaps most surprisingly, MC close at his heels, leveraging their sticks to catch air off of larger rocks. 

Further behind were Lucifer and Asmo, both walking quickly but nowhere near running. Lucifer set the pair’s pace, which seemed wholly dependent on how much scenery there was to take in. This impression was reinforced when he came to a full stop after cresting a steep hill of switchbacks to wonder aloud at a view of high, nodding cliffs covered in the spilling roots of strangler figs and red silk cotton trees. A whine from Asmo, who under no circumstances wanted to be on his own, and Lucifer continued the march into the deepening forest shadows.

Trailing along at the rear, at a cadence that could best be described as ‘unenthusiastic snail,’ was Belphie and Levi. Not more than ten minutes after they had set off, they came upon a great avenue of baobabs where the trees stood waist deep in a sea of wild red snapdragons. It was here that Belphie passed his hand over his head and proposed to Levi that they should sit for a while. “Here?” exclaimed Levi, looking about himself nervously in case something should appear suddenly from behind a tree. “I can still see where we started from.” Belphie sat down upon the side of the trail against a tall tree. The warm, soft air and the scent of the snapdragons soothed Levi into sitting as well. “You may not know it but MC gave me an important job on this hike. I’m the ‘sweeper’! That means that I have to stay at the very back to make sure no one gets left behind.” He looked over to Belphie whose eyes closed once. Opened. Closed again. Opened slowly and heavily… Belphie slumped against the tree and began breathing heavily almost immediately. Levi grasped his shoulder and gently shook him, but Belphie’s head only lolled onto his chest without waking. Levi realized then that he was the one who had been left well and truly behind.

### III.

Levi shifted closer to Belphie, leaning up against the same tree, but soon found himself sliding further and further down until he’s looking up at the towering flowers. A gust of too-warm air sets the waving stalks into a current above him so that the whole of the world seems to be scintillating with the somnolence of a lazy summer day. But another fluttering glance up and Levi saw the skulls. Small, closely packed skulls swarmed stems to his left and right. He shot up and looked about wildly. The skulls remained, nodding among the mass of flowers, until further scrutiny revealed them to be the dried remains of seed pods. Suddenly the heady, fragrant air was all too cloying, and so unnerved, Levi made to break camp. 

Levi removed his cloak and spread it on the trail with a snap of his wrist that he hoped was a gallant flourish, if there had been anyone present to witness it. Levi eased Belphie onto his back, bent one leg at the knee and curled one arm at the elbow, so that they both lay close to Belphie’s chest, and none too gently, Levi rolled him. A few more rolls and Belphie was situated on the cloak. Levi lifted the edge of the cloak closest to Belphie’s head and pulled. However, it wasn’t clear at all which direction Levi was pulling in. It was towards the trail’s entrance at first, but then, the further they travelled from Belphie’s resting place, the wider the drag path’s arc became, until it was no longer even adjacent to the trail but had instead become quite perpendicular to it. 

Levi kept his eyes trained on his brother, who bumped along with each extension and jerky contraction of Levi’s arms. Every backwards step was taken with an exploratory toe touch and cautiously light tread. They progressed backwards by degrees, until Levi was taken by surprise when, trying to stretch behind him past a large rock, he encountered a smaller rock where he had committed his foot to land. He stumbled backwards, releasing the cloak, and was surprised to find that the upper half of his body fell into soft, sticky mud. On his back now, Levi scrambled up to regain his purchase, but slipped and fell back a few times, splashing still more mud across his costume. He stumbled to a stand and finally looked behind him to see, not the entrance of the trail, but an unfamiliar terrain and a ribbon of a stream bordered by thin, yellow grasses. Belphie still lay asleep upon the cloak, so Levi pulled five kilometers further to the grassy bank of the brown stream. 

The breeze now carried with it a faint note of damp that goaded Levi to draw away from Belphie and travel up the stream. Hints of quicker flows and hidden depths emerged as white foam and deep pot-holes of water would suddenly become as dazzling as silver coins in the moonlight. Just as he was starting to become uncomfortable with how far he had travelled away from his younger brother and away from the trail, he caught sight of the falling water. It tumbled over deep grooves in a cliff and chattered over rocks before it soared into the air, erupting into visible droplets as it plunged across the expanse and crashed into a pool of still, black water below. In the gloomy moonlight, the water appeared black, but the churn of the falls themselves sparkled. Within moments Levi had peeled off his mud-encrusted Marine Corps Yumi uniform. It had been disappointingly less suited for action in the wild than he had been to lead to believe from the mangaka’s panels. He gently laid the costume to the side and slipped, first a foot, then a shin, up past his knees, nearly to the top of his thighs, into the deliciously frigid water. The water got deeper still. He took a slow breath and strode forward, steeling himself for the cold grip and recoiling flesh that marked his passage to waist deep water. With no more depths left to plunge, he knelt down to feel the brisk twinge again across his chest, and then slowly, half crawling and half kicking, travelled to the other side of the pool. 

On this side, near the waterfall, one could sit with the water close to one’s chin (if you slid down a little) and breathe in the slight salinity of the freshwater as it churned to mist nearby. The surrounding rocks and mud and trees contributed their own musty odors, until Levi simply drew his eyelids across his eyes and sighed in contentment. He barely noticed his tail unfolding and rippling in the water until the waterfall giggled excitedly as it drew near. Levi slid the translucent membrane back from one eye and peered over at the source of the noise. He let his tail arc and dip under the fall’s patter of whispers. He enjoyed the animated rattles and bubbles and bends of the (relatively young) streams nearly as much as loved the soft cries and shouts and sleep within the expanse of a great ocean. His eyelids once again horizontally blinked shut across his eyes.

### IV.

Levi’s attention was drawn back to the water because something odd had appeared there. A lithe, silvery something with hair like thin pale weeds snaking out behind it. It swam with great ease and speed toward him. All at once a girl – or something very like a girl – half-rose out of the water, and when she opened her mouth, from her throat came a great plume of water. “I will follow you under the water so that we may speak with ease,” said Levi to the infernal naiad. He slipped under the water and laid himself flat against the stones on the floor of the river beneath the waterfall, while the naiad circled around him until finally settling into a curl at his side. The naiad’s hair streamed out like silver snakes in the dark water. Levi opened his mouth and breathed out a spring, causing tiny bubbles to burst across her face and an eruption of delighted laughter.

Levi drew her close and said, “I will tell you a story about your sister, another daughter of Potamoi, but from the human realm.” 

There once was a river naiad named Troyshynt who lived in the great river of Trent on the largest of the British Isles. The Trent winds through much of the Midlands and flows into a sea of the Atlantic Ocean. Many humans came to entreat Troyshynt to restrain her quarrelsome river, for with every spring snowmelt and every downpour, she would flood her banks and trespass over the land surrounding her. Her broad floodplain included many adjacent fields and riverside villages, so the humans were wont to install floodbanks and defences. Despite their efforts, over and over, the banks would get breached, the bridges would get washed away, and the residents would be trapped or drowned by rising floodwaters. Angry, the humans sought to contain the smug and silver Troyshynt with dams to create new channels that were fair and even. But so unruly was Troyshynt, she often changed the course of the river, disrupting the main navigable route with old meanders and cut-off loops, and separating property owners’ from the best parts of their land.

Given the capricious nature of the Trent river, some humans conspired to divert the river in ways that would benefit them. The Earl of Shrewsbury, who was just such a human, sought a channel advantage in a fierce quarrel with his neighbor over the placement of a mill weir. The Earl had three daughters, the polite and easy-going Mary, the greedy and indifferent Elizabeth and the short-tempered and strong Alethea, and an orphaned niece who lived at the nearby Hardwick Hall, the quick-witted and energetic Arabella. Knowing that naiads were fond of maidens, he entreated his eldest daughter, Mary, to bathe in the swelling channels of the Trent, and when confronted by Troyshynt to convey an offering. The old Earl pressed a pot of honey into Mary’s hands for this purpose. Mary did as her father asked, and in the lonely hour of noon found a place to bathe along the Trent. Troyshynt was soon drawn to the girl, and as Mary stooped to splash water against her chest, Troyshynt reached out her hand to smooth away the freckles on Mary’s skin. Mary shrunk back in fear and covered herself before the beautiful naiad, remembering moments later to offer the pot of honey. Troyshynt took the honey and asked Mary what she most desired in the world. Mary explained that she wished the river channel would divert from its current course. “Then shall it be, my dear,” said Troyshynt kindly.

When Mary returned home, she found her father, the Earl, beside himself in rage. “What have you done, you stupid girl!” he exclaimed. “Now the river flows directly to the Stanhope’s mill!” In exasperation, he turned to his middle daughter, Elizabeth, and asked her to visit the naiad with a pot of oil as an offering. Elizabeth was not so easily inclined to help her father as Mary was, but when he offered her a pretty ring, she was soon on her way. Elizabeth waded far out into the same bend in the river Trent with the pot carefully balanced on her head. When she looked into the clear water, she saw a maiden swirling about her until, with an enormous splash, she turned around and found herself face-to-face with Troyshynt. Reluctantly, Elizabeth offered the pot of oil to the naiad who, once again, offered the girl whatever she desired. Elizabeth set her eyes upon her pretty ring, because the temptation was mighty indeed, and intoned her father’s request to breach the stone weir of the mill. “Then shall it be, my treasure,” said Troyshynt.

Elizabeth took her time on her way back from the river, but soon enough was set upon by her father. “Why have you vexed me again!” he yelled. “The stone weir was damaged in the breach, but now the current is so heavy there! Only the severest drought would cause the weir to fail.” His neighbor’s mill continued to thrive, and so the Earl had no choice but to turn to his youngest daughter, Alethea. He plied her with a pot of milk and she cheerfully agreed to take on the river naiad once again for the sake of their family. Alethea used twine to firmly tie the lid of the pot down and dove into the river Trent. She swam in the river until she reached the bank on the far side, enlivened by the cool waters, the pleasant stretch of her long limbs and the feeling of freedom. She turned to make her way back and found Troyshynt swimming silently along in her slipstream. Startled, Alethea stopped and raised her head above the water, only to see the large, dark eyes of the naiad peering at her along the waterline. Alethea shyly gave her the pot of milk, which Troyshynt dutifully unwrapped and examined. Forgetting to wait for the naiad to make her offer, Alethea burst out that she wished the channel to be diverted once again but away from the old corn mill. Troyshynt eyed the human girl warily but said with a wry smile, “Then it shall be, my sweet.” 

Alethea was even slower in her return home, much enjoying her time on the road, and was perhaps unsurprised to find her father in fits as she crossed the threshold. “Where have you been all this time? While you’ve been gone, Stanhope’s men have built a trench some 60 yards long to divert the Trent back to their weir!” The Earl of Shrewsbury had no choice but to turn to his orphaned niece. “It is perhaps right and fitting that you are the one tasked with ending our neighbor’s fortune. My father had an understanding with Sir William Holles that his boy, John, would marry one of our kinswomen. We intended to turn your fortunes and effect your escape from Hardwick Hall with this advantageous marriage. When John Holles chose instead to wed Stanhope’s daughter, it was the greatest affront in the world.” He pressed upon Arabella a pot of wine and his last request of the naiad to utterly destroy Sir Thomas Stanhope’s corn mill once and for all. Arabella looked kindly upon her Uncle, despite the malice of his plan, and set on her way.

On the road Arabella encountered a wizened old man who begged her for some food and water. When she told him she only had a pot of wine, he tearfully asked for a drink from the pot. She sat with him under the shade of an old oak and cheerfully drank from the pot of wine together until it was no more. Arabella then lamented her fate and explained to the old man that the wine was meant to be an offering to the river Trent. The old man laughed, “I have nothing to pay you with, but I can tell you that your Uncle is a wicked man. You may give a naiad honey or oil or milk, but never wine. Mark my words, the naiad would have killed you on the spot for such a slight. Instead, give her this empty pot.” 

Arabella was nervous when she reached the Trent with only an empty pot. She slowly forded the river up to her waist, and then used the empty pot to pour water upon her face and hair. Once, when looking down to scoop up water, she saw a ghostly hand. There under the silted water was a woman reaching her way back up to the light. Arabella thought to wonder how the woman was in such deep water when here she herself stood upon the riverbed, but still she reached down into the water to grasp the hand and pull the young woman up. When it was abundantly clear that the woman who stood before her was no human, Arabella offered the empty pot, now full of river water, to the naiad before her. Troyshynt looked at the pot curiously, then nodded in satisfaction to something unsaid, finally tucking it under her arm with the intention to convey the water to her river parents. “What do you, Arabella, desire most in the world?” Troyshynt asked.

It occurred to Arabella that she had never been asked this in her life. Not when her parents were alive, nor when they died, nor when she had been taken in by her grandmother to Hardwick Hall, and not even when so much ado had been made about her education and prospects. When Arabella opened her mouth to respond, nothing seemed further from her mind than her Uncle’s request. “Please, tell me where I can find my future husband,” she said. 

The naiad recited Arabella her prophecy. Arabella listened to it intently, and then started to turn the meaning over in her mind with such focus she barely noticed the naiad’s swift departure. Her return home was troubled with thoughts of towers and adversaries and ships, but still she diverted her travels to the site of the old priory in Shelford where the naiad had insisted her future husband could be found. Confused as to how she could find a husband in a priory, she found that the Augustinian monastery was now largely torn down and a grand manor was being built in its place. An inquiry to one of the laborers revealed that the land was owned by the Stanhopes, a close branch of the very same family that neighbored her Uncle’s lands. Arabella said nothing in response but nodded grimly and turned to leave. The laborer called out to her though and pointed to a visiting nobleman on the hill with whom she could speak. She turned her eyes up the terrain to gaze at a man with a handsome face, fair hair, and a tall, well-made figure. The laborer escorted her to his side and did his fumbling best to introduce the lady to the Duke of Somerset. With some help from her Aunt, Arabella Stuart was wed by that summer.

Troyshynt travelled on as well, with the water jug firmly tucked under her arm, until the Trent met with the Ouse to form the Humber and then all spilled into the North Sea. There on the shelf of the North Sea of the Atlantic, she told me the story of the wicked Earl, his daughters and orphaned niece. I twisted and writhed across her form as she told it, and she gave me a drink of the fresh water she’d carried from the old Trent. Across her back, I traced the winding path of the rivers of England as I whispered to her of revolts and plots and kingdoms. I moved my finger again over her back and all of the patterns of the rivers flowed and swirled until the whole of England was neatly divided into three, nearly equal shares. I pressed the shapes into her back until the strategy was firm in her mind and she shivered in cold delight. Once I was satisfied, I released the naiad maiden, and wriggled off to the depths of the Ocean to once again encircle the great Abyss.”

### V.

Leviathan twisted around with the hellish nymph once more before returning to the water’s surface and his resting spot, with her nestled into the crook of his arm. Only the smell of the river, the splash of the water and a certain occasional glint of the moon and shifting-about of the darkness suggested there was even a pool around their reclining forms. 

Then suddenly the river seemed to grow tired of him. The lap of water against the stones ceased upon the instant that a thundering, crashing noise came from above, as if a hundred Shadow Hogs were stampeding down the hillside. The naiad had retreated, but Levi didn’t move or make a sound. After some minutes passed, the noise resolved into a source when MC stepped out of the brush, splashed in mud, with bits of twigs in their hair, and overall looking considerably worse for wear. “Levi! What the devil are you doing here?” Levi made no response, it appearing to him to be perfectly obvious what he was doing and how much he was enjoying it prior to their arrival. “I didn’t think anyone could have possibly made it here before me.” Their headlamp had been discarded at some point, leaving a red pressure mark across their forehead that looked like they had recently escaped the suction grip of a tentacle. Levi’s third eyelid swam back into place as he relaxed his mind into fully contemplating that pleasant scenario. “Levi, don’t fall asleep on me.” A whine now as MC stood over him on the bank. The river naiad caught sight of MC, and Levi felt a tinge of jealousy radiate throughout the river in concentric waves. He subtly soothed her by vibrating his body, effected through a sequential contraction and relaxation of the sonic muscle of his maw.

Swaying movements and soft rustling nearby caused him to finally turn towards MC, only to see bare skin emerging. Levi swiftly turned back to look at the waterfall, his mind racing over the scant visible details, despite the mental repetition only prolonging the warm sensation in his ears and face. “So there’s skinny dipping in the Devildom, too, huh?” MC called out and started to slowly enter the water closer to the falls. A sharp intake of breath triggered Levi’s sudden movement out of his spot and several meters into the pool’s depths. MC was experiencing the breathtaking temperature of this pool, and Levi was eager to help them make that adjustment expeditiously. Already they had waded up to their knees, but were hesitant to go further, when Levi whipped back around facing MC, body and tail slicing through the water to create a wave. The wave rushed forward towards them and as it did so, the crest’s watery fingers reached out towards their exposed midsection, as if trying to pull them in. The moment the water touched MC, they let out a blood curdling cry. “Damnit, Levi, it is shockingly cold!” But he only replied by sending more waves crashing towards them, and into the water they fell with another sharp cry and flailing limbs. The flailing continued until Levi stood up, the water only barely covering his pelvis, to signal just how undignified it had all become. MC’s teeth chattered around a flood of curses on Levi’s name. He puttered around the small pool in lazy circles, taunting and splashing whatever exposed skin remained. Eventually, MC became acclimatized enough to stop stamping and shivering, and they nestled themselves close to Levi in his original spot near the waterfall. He felt the stream curl around his feet, and only then felt inclined to speak. 

“Where the fuck have you been?” Levi exclaimed, and looked so very much put out, MC’s natural impulse was to apologize to him – though what sort of apology they could offer him for being away on the hike they did not know. 

“Well, for one, I was escaping from Satan,” MC said. “He was playing some other game from the very beginning. As soon as we fell out of sight from a retreating Mammon and Beel, and Lucifer and Asmo were nowhere to be seen behind us, he had me cornered.” Levi slid his tail around MC’s waist, he thought sympathetically. MC studied him for a moment. “I am sure you are a very different sort of demon from Satan.”

“I hope I am,” said Levi, seriously.

MC continued, “Without anyone around to see us, it was clear to me that I was in thrall to Satan and must abandon continuing the race. He was full of kisses and told me we would soon fix upon another plan. But I confess I quite lost track of time and parted from him in a disordered frame of mind. I had not gone very many steps when I happened upon a side trail which brought me to the waterfall precipice above.”

“If I may reflect back to you what I heard?” queried Levi. 

“Of course!” exclaimed MC, smiling at his use of a communication technique they had recently taught him.

“You and Satan took the opportunity of being alone to make out whereupon you lost any possible hope of besting the others so you instead cheated by taking an unofficial shortcut,” he said all together in one breath.

MC turned away their head to hide a grimace of guilt before looking back to Levi. “Another opportunity of being alone seems to have availed itself. You might even say that it is more opportune,” they said as their hand reached out to find his bare knee attached to an equally bare, and charmingly goosebumped, thigh. His hand fitted over theirs, halting the velocity of their shear force with an overwhelming tangential one. Despite the teasing, MC became suddenly aware that Levi now had both their waist and hand effortlessly restrained, and far from being hesitant, he was staring at them with an intensity rarely applied to 3D forms that lacked 2D predecessors.

MC studied him a moment. “May I ask you something? What is it about being in the water that effects such a change in you?” They put up their hand as if they intended to brush Levi’s face with their fingertips. “You are like a different creature.”

Levi leaned his cheek into MC’s upraised hand, and reached towards MC’s mouth to brush his thumb against their bottom lip. Their lips, indeed their whole face, were wet from the heavy moisture that hung in the air. Levi could not help but feel envious of his brother kissing those lips. “I am not aware of any change. I am just what I have always been. Perhaps more like myself than you would ever have known,” he said. 

Just as they began to fear that he was too different from the Levi they knew, he gave them the most familiar smile in the world. In a matter of moments, his smile spread to their own lips and they protested, “Levi, I cannot keep my composure straight if you stare at me like that. You never look at me so very often. You always have your eyes glued to a screen.” 

“Ah, but we are hiking now, are we not? There is nothing to distract me here. No wireless, no cell signal. Not even a handheld or tankobon.” he said, mocking the pat down of pockets on his naked body with his free hand. 

“You just didn’t want to damage your stuff. But I really expected this experience to cripple you more,” said MC, laughing. 

“On the contrary, I have nothing to do. It is so dull here, I can only turn to you.”

MC frowned. “If that was meant to be a compliment…” Levi laughed and caught MC’s lips with his own before they could express any further offense. He coiled his tail back towards himself which deposited MC directly on his lap, while one of his fingers moved over the surface of the water to form patterns and symbols that flowed and swirled with the current. They wrapped their arms around his neck as he leaned them slightly down, parallel with the water. As he dipped his tongue down into their mouth, he dunked them both just under the surface of the water, covering their ears, their eyes, their mouth, then their nose. At first panicked, MC soon realized that no matter how often Levi broke his seal over their lips to hungrily roam over their mouth, their face, their jaw, then their neck, they were still somehow able to breathe without taking in water. MC relaxed and a smile slowly seeped across their face. Everything seemed to be undulating in and around them all at once until the edges of them bled away and they were just a rising and a receding. Forgetting that they were, or ever had been, a human, they flowed until they became the glittering line of water that covered the hillside.

“I think I’ve seen John the Baptist make that same move,” said a voice that had come in on little cat feet behind them. The heavy swell buoying MC finally broke as Levi tilted them back to the surface.

“I’m supposing you interrupted him as well,” replied Levi, coolly. He sighed and released MC to a future only suitable for younger audiences. He turned his eyes back to his brother in a disdainful glare.

### 

VI.

Some thousands of years before MC was summoned to the Devildom to fulfill a dubious and lackadaisical mission loosely described as ‘diplomacy,’ demons roamed the earth tempting the wary emissaries and avatars of God himself. Consider then, if you will, an MC who lives with seven archdemons day after day, a small human of no particular personal allure. One might consider this situation grave indeed, but, thought MC, nothing that a plucky attitude might not cure; and so like many other MCs before and after them, they made it their business to involve themselves in every problem they encountered, and, being a winsome MC with careless manners and an even more thoughtless way of talking, in no time at all they had become comfortable confronting ineffable divinities. 

“I, for one, would like to hear how you managed to get to this exact spot, Satan. When we took leave of one another,” said MC, noting his raised eyebrow at the innocuous reference to their parting. “you claimed you were going to focus on playing pranks on Lucifer for the rest of the race.”

“Yes. I did,” protested Satan. “It was all going, well, let’s say it was going just as you are now, shall we? …swimmingly.” He gave a pointed look to the pair who seemed reluctant to emerge from the pool. Both had sunk down until their chins rested just above the water line. “Well, that was the situation up until a fire I’d set got a little away from me. I decided that prank would turn out to be rather all-consuming. It was time for me to take my exit.” continued Satan. 

MC took note of the singed taffeta of his tutu before asking, “But how did you make it here so quickly then?”

“My dear, it is said that love will find its way to paths where even wolves fear to prey,” quoth Satan. MC sighed deeply and awaited a less smarmy response. “I just followed the shortcut on the map,” Satan finally replied. “There’s a white trail that cuts across the loop and leads right here, a few kilometers from the trail’s end point.” 

MC shook their head ruefully. They knew that using white correction fluid to obscure the shortcut trail was way too lazy.

“We’re that close to the exit!” exclaimed Levi. Like every brother, excepting Satan, he had never given a passing glance to the trail map. 

In his enthusiasm over the hike coming to an end, Levi scrambled across the pool and up the riverbank towards his clothes. It was MC’s turn to avert their eyes and engage in quiet self-reflection regarding recent sights. Dressing was slow-going. Levi’s clothes were stiff with mud and refused to slide over his wet skin. The same maddeningly slow process started again once MC hoisted themselves up the embankment where they left their clothes. 

Satan crossed his arms and trained his dark gaze, and even darker smile, on a tree whose roots slyly extended themselves beneath the rocks at the edge of the pool, and which was itself twined about thickly with strands of poison ivy and an infestation of witch’s broom. Satan reflected that despite being outside of the city, everywhere he turned there was still danger, chaos and overwhelming, collective murder. He hummed in contentment at the vast merciless hell that was nature, and noting that Levi was fully dressed, pointed out a curious nearby bush. 

Covering one branch of the bush was a fuzzy white coating that pulsed and rolled under the light of Satan’s DDD flashlight. Levi stepped closer to see the branch was in fact covered in thousands of tiny white bugs, each no larger than a white cotton ball tip, with spindly white legs projecting from all directions on its body. The legs were in constant motion, either slowly crawling over one another or waving about in the air. “I believe they’re wooly bully aphids,” replied Satan to no one’s inquiry. “They’re sucking the sap from the leaves and branch of this immature tree.” Levi leaned quite close to the branch with a look on his face that was equal parts fascination and disgust. “Be careful, they have stingers,” he warned with a flourish of his fingers against Levi’s nape, which brought such a start from Levi he nearly pitched forward into the bugs. 

Impervious to the shouting and violent noises of tumultuous water, MC was thankful for the privacy afforded them to return select pieces of their ensemble back onto their person until a fairly disturbing thought crossed their mind. “Levi, you were the sweep, right? Then I would be very glad if you could tell me where Belphie is? There’s little chance he kept up with Lucifer and Asmo.” 

The look on Levi’s face conveyed his momentary concern over having forgotten all about leaving his younger brother further down the stream, but it was quickly replaced with a surety from knowing exactly where he had left him. They all walked the short distance along the narrowing stream until there was but a slow-moving trickle and a cloak that lay spread upon the ground. A cloak where no Belphie was sprawled upon it. “Ah, well, this is where I left him,” said Levi, his hand involuntarily coming to the back of his neck like it always did whenever he didn’t have an answer and everyone’s eyes were upon him. Satan’s eyebrows drew together in concern over the insecure gesture.

“He probably woke up and wandered off,” reasoned MC. “The trail end is only a few kilometers from here. Let’s start there and then backtrack across to the trail entrance.” 

“So you’re proposing we go to the end of the trail, where Belphie may or may not be. Just the three of us. The front runners.” Satan said, with a wry smile. In response, a long smile crept up one side of MC’s face as well. Satan and MC eyed one other and the direction of the trail end as they slowly shifted the orientation of their feet.  
Levi was still looking in various directions for Belphie when he detected a shift in the barometric pressure. An intense atmosphere had risen up between his companions and enveloped Levi, who could only look on in alarm. “Uh… guys?” Before he could say another word, they were off like a shot, great grins upon their faces. 

Left to himself, again, Levi made to finally step away from the stream. Pausing, Levi left one last lingering stroke with his middle and ring fingers across her surface, and felt the river rising up to meet his fingertips.

### 

VII.

When they reached the end of the main trail where it joins with the road, much to their chagrin, Belphie could be seen stretched out on a bench looking up at the sky. “Belphie!” MC cried out, hands on knees, panting from a sprint against the devil himself. “You did it! You were the first one here!”

“I know, MC. You don’t have to be all loud about it,” Belphie said, slowly sitting up and noting Levi who came bounding in shortly after. “Thanks for ditching me, Levi.” Levi cast a self-loathing look down at the ground. 

“Whatever, loser, I was fine,” Belphie sighed.

“We should prepare for when the rest of us get here,” Satan announced and started setting up a makeshift fire ring using the aforementioned abundance of rocks and twigs. “Beel will be expecting those ‘mountain pies’ you promised him.”

“I drug the pie iron along on the hike just for him,” MC said, and pulled out of their backpack a long handled press made of cast iron. 

As MC started laying out the ingredients from their pack, Belphie spoke up again. “Speaking of promises,” he looked meaningfully at MC. “you have some to yet fulfill for me.”

“Oh?” MC’s voice rose, but they never stopping buttering the sliced bread. “Please remind me.”

“You had told me that the stars would be more visible out here away from the city. But then you chose a night with a full moon.” Belphie gestured to a sky so bright with moonlight it precluded any chance of seeing stars.

“I didn’t want to break my neck, Belph. You guys can see in the dark, but I can only see what’s right in front of my face under a flashlight. A full moon hike is safer for me.” MC said, and spread some tomato sauce and sprinkled cheese onto the bread for the first pies.

“OK, then make it up to me. I want my prize for getting to the trail end first. I want to see the stars with you, tonight,” Belphie began and then stopped. MC had deftly closed the pie iron, sandwiching the two slices of the bread and its filling, before shoving the iron into the fledgling fire Satan started. Turning, they fully devoted their attention to Belphie.

“Of course, Belphie. Whatever you say.” MC pressed a kiss to his cheek and pulled out their phone. Their human world phone. They turned it on and waited for the software to load. “I prepared the stars just for you,” MC continued. They selected a sky chart app and held it up to the sky. “The last time I was in the human world, I downloaded this app and a sky map for a specific date. So what we can see here on the screen is what the stars would look like in the human world, at exactly our coordinates here at the trail’s end, on the day that I came to the Devildom for the first time.” 

MC was holding their phone up to the sky, but it was still below Belphie’s eye level, so he took it from them and held it up above his head. On its screen, he could see the night sky littered with stars of all intensities, and as he panned the phone to the right and to the left, the night sky view shifted along with it. He spun around, travelling across the whole of the firmament, as he peered into the past of another realm through its augmented viewfinder. When he touched one or another bright point in the sky, an aggressively accented voice with bad pronunciation listed off the name of the star or constellation. 

MC had already turned back to the fire to retrieve the first pie before it burned in the flames. They had carefully set the iron on the edge of the stone ring and made to retrieve a plate when Belphie caught them in his arms. “I only got half of what I asked for,” he said as he lifted them up, rested them against his chest and pressed a kiss against their surprised mouth. MC’s eyes closed. When they opened them again, all they could see was the moon’s bright face, white and pale and cold. They forgot about the pies. They forgot about the running, or the hiking, or was it running and hiking? They forgot about the brothers. They forgot their own name. They forgot about everything except the moon. 

MC blinked and found themselves back on the ground, with Belphie leading them to the bench for more stargazing. MC called over to Levi. “Please, Levi, can you continue making the mountain pies? We need a pile of them for when Beel arrives.” They knew Levi, still with no distractions to interrupt his envious gaze, had been watching them the entire time. Levi nodded warily and started with plating the pies MC had just finished. 

It has been remarked (by a gentleman considerably wittier than the present author) that the good old times simply reflect that all times, when old, are good. Levi sighed, thankful that this event was receding into just another passage of the devil’s scriptures, or what the humans call ‘history.’ “That one in which a human and some demons take an outing together that defies all understanding, and no one likes it,” he says aloud to no one. He butters the slices of bread and presses them into the molds, just as he’d seen MC do before, but then fills them with everything sweet that MC had laid out: jam and chocolate and marshmallow and peanut butter. He imagines the look on Beel’s and MC’s faces biting into the sweet pockets of bread, and smiles wistfully: damn, these mountain pies look like Azuki-tan.

“It may be a little while before they arrive,” sighed Satan. He was staring off towards the horizon where the dark was giving way to smoke and a sharp glow. His eyes were a strange mixture of slate-blue and sea-green that, when caught up in the distant conflagration, made a kind of twilight coloration that would seem less out-of-place illuminating a kingdom under the sea than gracing a fair face, or worse, staring into your own eyes. “It seems they still have quite the fire going on in their quarter. Knowing Lucifer, he feels an obligation to prevent the whole of this area from burning down.” Satan smiled his self-mocking smile and threw some wood he’d scrounged onto their growing bonfire. As he poked at the flames, he imagined the fireman heroics of Mammon and Beel, and the weary, ash covered faces of Lucifer and Asmo. “Oh, MC, when you’re free, I rather feel like dancing.”

### 

End


End file.
